This year’s Learning! 100 winners share common experiences. These honorees have been transforming their learning and talent programs. They started from scratch, enabled new technologies and processes, and ended up being more efficient and impactful. The most successful have been named 2013 Learning! 100 award winners. In its 3rd year, the Learning! 100 awards honor high performance, organizational culture, innovation and collaboration.

As in previous years, Elearning! and Government Elearning! magazines (EMG) recognize 60 corporate and 40 public-sector organizations for outstanding learning culture, innovation or collaboration that drives performance. Honorees cut across all industries and organization sizes, from 2 to 2.6 million employees. “We are honored to recognize these top performing learning organizations for 2013,” says Catherine Upton, group publisher. “Altogether, the Learning! 100 winners represent the best-of-the-best in learning and development across multi-national organizations.” The Learning! 100 Award program has a solid, research-based approach that offers firms a level playing field despite size, and many post-awards learning opportunities to share their knowledge.

Learning! 100 applicants were evaluated across three criteria: Aberdeen Group’s Best-in-Class Learning & Development assessment, EMG’s Learning Culture index, and overall organizational performance. Each submission received a rating for each section, and scores were totaled to identify the top 100. Their individual Learning! 100 rankings were determined by overall performance and the impact of their learning leadership.

“The top-ranked organizations all drive innovation and learning impact across their organizations,” says Jerry Roche,editorial director. “For example, American Heart Association’s mission is to reduce heart-related mortalities. It embraces learning across its communities: medical practitioners, employees and volunteers. The mission is honorable, and its learning strategies are impactful.”

There are lessons in the following pages that can apply to all learning organizations. Your peers hint that even more is possible than what has been done in the past. First and foremost, we can use new technologies entering the workplace — from smartphones and tablets to Skype and other telepresence technology — to go where we’ve never gone before and be what we’ve never been before. We can be more efficient. We can be more cost-effective. We can be more learner-centric. We can reach new audiences wherever they are. We can provide better ways to collaborate. We can move out of the classroom and into the workplace. We can even flip the entire process of learning, like what’s being done at Khan Academy. It’s our collective imagination that defines those limits, and it’s people on the cutting-edge of learning that will determine our futures.

Elearning! and Government Elearning! magazines proudly salute the achievements and outstanding leadership of this year’s winners.